Frugal Recipes

Archive for February, 2011

Olive Garden Style Gnocchi Soup

Monday, February 21st, 2011

Sometimes there will be a sale on something you’ve never bought before. In my case it was potato gnocchi.

This Colavita potato gnocchi was on sale, bargain priced, so I bought it!

Colavita gnocchi

Colavita gnocchi

Here’s how

My version of Olive Garden’s Gnocchi Soup

# 2 cans chicken broth
# 2 cups whole milk
# 1 t minced garlic
# few baby carrots chopped or sliced
# 1/2 onion, diced
# 1/2 cup frozen chopped spinach
# 1 tablespoon olive oil
# 1 teaspoon thyme
# salt and pepper
# 16 ounces potato gnocchi
# 1 tablespoon cornstarch

1. Saute the onion, garlic, and carrot in oil over medium heat until onion is translucent.
2. Add chicken broth, milk salt,pepper, and thyme. Heat to boiling, then add gnocchi and frozen spinach. Gently boil for 4 minutes, then turn down to a simmer for 10 minutes.
3. Heat to boiling and add cornstarch dissolved in 1-2 Tbsp water at this point if you want a thicker soup.).
4. Ladle into bowls and serve!

gnocchi-soup-in-the-pot

gnocchi-soup-in-the-pot

Olive Garden’s probably has chicken in it. I was serving this with chicken salad over greens, so I opted NOT to use chicken in the soup. I’ve only had this once before, at Olive Garden. I found it ‘different’ but delish and this version was great too! It will now be a fall-back soup recipe for this household!

gnocchi-soup

gnocchi-soup

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Biscuits n Gravy

Sunday, February 20th, 2011

So what do you do with leftover Blue & Gold sausage patties?

Blue and Gold Sausage patties

Blue and Gold Sausage patties

Well you can have biscuits and sausage for a quick on the go meal.

You can crumble it up and use it wherever you use ground beef.

Or you can make biscuits and gravy!

YUM!

biscuits-gravy

biscuits-gravy

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Snow Day Food

Wednesday, February 9th, 2011

OK, for tons of people snow day food is beans and cornbread. Followed by snow ice cream.

Well I couldn’t talk Chili-man into snow ice cream so I had to go another route.

Comfort food starting with breakfast. There’s no sausage better in my mind than Blue & Gold. Man oh man is it good! I received a log at Christmastime and it’s been in my freezer ever since. Snowed in? That’s a good time for biscuits and sausage.

Blue & Gold sausage

Blue & Gold sausage

And yes those are frozen biscuits. HEY, I don’t normally have time to make biscuits from scratch; I’m a busy lady! (Hence the bagged frozen biscuits that I’m not buying again. They didn’t hold up well in the freezer. MAYBE if they were in some kind of flat package where they didn’t mold onto each other. They also don’t rise well when they’ve been in the freezer awhile. Even canned would have been better…)

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Pineapple Pie

Tuesday, February 1st, 2011

Just the other night, I was watching a movie, and wishing I had a piece of pie…

Wishes do come true!

Course, it was a day or so later….. I ran across a Pineapple Pie recipe on PW’s site and thought hey that sounds good!

I always change things up a little…

pineapple pie with meringue

pineapple pie with meringue

Pineapple Pie

Ingredients:
# ¾ cups Sugar
# 2 Tablespoons Butter
# 3 whole Eggs (separated)
# ⅓ cups Cornstarch
# ½ teaspoons Vanilla Extract
# ½ cups Plus 2 Tablespoons Of Water
# 8 ounces, weight Canned Crushed Pineapple
# 1 whole 9-inch Pre-baked Pie Crust

and for the meringue
# 3 whole Egg Whites (from Separated Eggs Above)
# ⅛ teaspoons Salt

For the pie, stir together sugar, and egg yolks, add in the cornstarch and vanilla then add in the water and can of crushed pineapple. Toss in the butter. Cook over medium heat, melting the butter, then stirring constantly until thick. Pour into a 9″ baked pastry.

For the meringue, whip egg whites until they begin to get foamy. Add the remaining ingredients and continue to whip until the meringue has reached soft peak stage and is smooth and glossy. Place the meringue over the cooled pie. Brown at 400ºF for just a few minutes or until golden on top.

Great right then and great later all cooled off too!

pineapple pie

pineapple pie

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